Jane Adams' Letter

A letter from former councilperson Jane Adams, sent to members of the city council this week. A condensed version of this letter appears in this week's Carbondale Times. Letter posted with Adams' permission:

To my elected representatives,

I wasn't able to watch the zoom City Council meeting last night, but have read the Southern's and Scott Thorne's accounts. I'm frankly perplexed:

You have stopped some, perhaps many, City services. The ones I most notice as a resident is the administrative policy of not enforcing our weed and grass ordinance, and as a landlord, the temporary suspension of the rental inspection program. But with the City Hall/Civic Center closure, receptionists and others whose jobs required a lot of face-to-face contact with the public, as well as managing activities in the Civic Center, now have no obvious work to do. Have these workers been reassigned to other jobs? Or are they simply home drawing a paycheck without working?

If the former, the residents of this town have a right to know how staff who are underemployed are being reassigned. If the latter, they should be furloughed immediately, while the $600 weekly federal stimulus monies can be added to their regular unemployment benefits. 

You know -- and can calculate -- the amount of revenue the City is losing by not getting food and beverage and lodging taxes. And you can assume that, even if the stay-at-home orders are lifted the end of May (or perhaps earlier), those revenues will remain depressed at least through the end of this calendar year. And if predictions are accurate that students will be reluctant to return in large numbers until a COVID-19 vaccine is available, the City's economic depression may well continue for at least another year.

I don't understand your reasoning at all. It makes no fiscal sense to me, and seems to be a wasteful and irresponsible use of taxpayer monies. This crisis is putting a great deal of pressure on our community as the many small-scale, often sole-proprietor, businesses are closed, the "gig economy" collapses, and retirement portfolios shrink. This is a time for the City to take seriously the need to re-energize investments in, for example, promoting restoration of the large amount of blighted housing and business stock, helping our local hospitality and retail businesses restart, and making the community attractive to visitors and residents. That was at least part of what the new taxes were earmarked for. To take those revenues, without first furloughing temporarily redundant workers, is unconscionable.

Our restauranteurs have taken an enormous hit, and they're stepping up to help our entire community through the Southern Illinois Kitchen Collaborative and other initiatives. People have taken it on themselves to make masks for front-line workers. The University is providing food and learning materials for their students. All over the region people are stepping up to help those most deeply affected by this crisis. 

Where is the City? Raiding the local improvement fund to keep redundant workers on staff. If they, like so many small businesses, contract workers, and retirees in our community, faced penury if they were laid off, I'd say keeping them employed would be the right thing to do. But this is one place where our social safety net has actually been strengthened -- at least for covered employees -- by federal stimulus money. Take advantage of it!

Jane Adams